SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

Hosts Kate Ellis and Doris Tulifau explore the perils and possibilities of the kind of fieldwork that defined Margaret Mead as an anthropologist. They provide answers to the Mead-Freeman controversy but also ask the questions that remain. 

In this season finale, we circle back to the problems with coming of age ? in Samoa and everywhere.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

We turn from Margaret Mead?s and Derek Freeman?s conflicting accounts of adolescence and sexuality in Samoa to more stories from Samoans themselves. 

Author and poet Sia Figiel and activist and anthropologist Doris Tulifau are two Samoan women from different generations. Yet they share a bond and have a similar experience of terrible violence and survival. 

They bravely give us a glimpse into the dynamics of power within sexuality and their heartfelt journey of reclaiming it.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

After Derek Freeman publishes Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, the controversy heats up. Op-eds, documentaries, censure by a leading anthropological organization, and even a debate on the Phil Donahue Show all follow. 

Was Margaret Mead, ?the grandmother of the world,? wrong? Or was Freeman? 

At stake was the heart of an academic discipline and the nature of being human. Mead?s own daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, launches a defense, and other anthropologists weigh in too.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

SAPIENS is happy to present this bonus episode from Lost Women of Science about another path-breaking thinker.

In the 1960s, a Black home economist at Howard University recruited kids for an experimental preschool program. All were Black and lived in poor neighborhoods around campus.

Flemmie Kittrell had grown up poor herself, just two generations removed from slavery, and she?d seen firsthand the effects of poverty. While Flemmie earned a PhD from Cornell, most of her siblings didn?t make it to college. One of her sisters died at just 22 years old of malnutrition. And it was the combination of these experiences that drove Flemmie to apply her academic training to help improve the lives of people in her community.

In the early 1960s, Flemmie decided to see what would happen if you gave poor kids a boost early in life, in the form of a really great preschool. Every day for two years, parents would get free childcare, and their kids would get comprehensive care for body and mind?with plenty of nutritious food, fun activities, and hugs. What kind of difference would that make? And would it matter later on?

The first missionary arrived in Samoa in 1832, almost a century before Margaret Mead set out to study the culture of the islands. By the time she arrived, the church had been a central part of Samoan life for generations.

In this episode, Doris Tulifau explores how Christianity and colonization complicate Mead?s?and her critic Derek Freeman?s?conclusions and continue to shape Samoan identity today.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In January 1983, the front page of The New York Times read: ?New Samoa Book Challenges Margaret Mead?s Conclusions.? 

Anthropologist Derek Freeman had been building his critique of Mead for years, sending her letters and even confronting her in person. Freeman?s resulting book, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth, was published five years after Mead died. 

Who was Freeman and why did he take such issue with Mead?s work in American Samoa?

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Sparked by a provocative encounter in American Samoa, Doris Tulifau explores modern-day Samoan attitudes toward Margaret Mead. With a mix of voices and opinions, we encounter three loud ideas around Mead?s work, ultimately dropping us at the doorstep of Derek Freeman?s central critique about Samoan culture and society.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In 1925, Margaret Mead set sail for American Samoa. What she claimed she found there?teenagers free to explore and express their sexuality?instantly captivated her audience in the U.S. Her book became a bestseller, and Mead skyrocketed to fame. 

But what were her actual methods and motivations? We trace Mead?s legendary nine-month journey in the South Pacific.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Being a teenager can be hard. Very hard. Our hosts Kate Ellis and Doris Tulifau recount the tough parts from their adolescence to ask whether being a teen is difficult in every culture. 

It?s the question that inspired Margaret Mead, one of the most influential figures in American anthropology, to begin her research in American Samoa in 1925. And it?s the question that has sparked years of debate about human sexuality, nature versus nurture, and whether we can ever really understand each other.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This special SAPIENS podcast season tells the story of famed anthropologist Margaret Mead?s epic life and controversial research to explore key quandaries about the human experience: sex and adolescence, nature versus nurture, and the question of whether it?s ever possible to fully understand cultures different from your own. In addition, we hear from Samoans themselves about their views on the matter and their lives today.

In 1928, when she was just 27 years old, Mead published Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization, which investigated the sexual lives of young women on the Pacific Islands. The book was an instant bestseller, challenging people in the U.S. to rethink much of what they had assumed to be true about sex, human biology, and growing up. Mead became the most influential anthropologist in history and one of TIME magazine?s most powerful 25 women of the 20th century. She received a U.S. presidential medal of freedom, and a U.S. postal stamp was made with her picture on it.

But what if Mead?s findings about Samoans were wrong?

Five years after Mead?s death, anthropologist Derek Freeman rebutted the central claims Mead made in her career-launching work, sparking a media sensation and challenging the field of anthropology. The controversy that followed sparked questions about the science of intercultural understanding and why Samoans weren?t empowered to speak for themselves.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Season 6 of the SAPIENS podcast was co-produced by PRX and SAPIENS, and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The chart-topping and Signal Award-winning podcast ?Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant? has returned for a brand new season. Produced by Nature on PBS, ?Going Wild? is a sound-rich podcast about the human drama behind saving animals. This season, host and acclaimed wildlife ecologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant takes you on a journey through the entire ecological web?from the tiniest of life forms to apex predators.

The new season is guided by one central question: ?How can we, humans, look at our relationship to nature differently??

Dr. Wynn-Grant speaks to scientists, activists, and adventurers as they uncover all the different ways the natural world is interconnected. Explore the hidden world of extreme microbes thriving in the Boiling River in Peru with Dr. Rosa Espinoza, the ?Amazon Jungle Scientist.? Listen to Christian Cooper, the man behind the infamous Central Park ?Black birder? incident, on how growing up gay in the 80?s has led to his lifelong love of birds and nature. 

Listen to the third season of ?Going Wild with Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant? here: https://link.chtbl.com/LTZFSlMP?sid=Sapiens

Archaeologists around the world have long unearthed skulls with holes in them. But they were usually dismissed as natural accidents?the result of infections, birth defects, or animal bites. But in 1864 an archaeologist named Ephraim George Squier found a skull in Cuzco, Peru with a hole that was clearly not natural?it was square-shaped. The hole also showed signs of new bone growth around its edge, which meant the person couldn?t have been dead when the hole was cut. This skull was the first unquestionable evidence of something that scientists had long dismissed as impossible?ancient neurosurgery.

Host: Sam Kean
Senior Producer: Mariel Carr
Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez
Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer

Music:

?Trois Gnossiennes 3,? ?Stately Shadows,? ?Darklit Carpet,? ?Vernouillet,? and ?Tossed? by Blue Dot Sessions
?Conjunto Sol del Peru,? by Pockra (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos)
?Conjunto Sol del Peru,? by Wuaylias Tusy (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos)
?Conjunto Sol del Peru,? by Ckashampa (Vol. 2: Musica de los Andes Peruanos) 

The Bioneers: Revolution From the Heart of Nature is an award-winning, international radio and podcast series. Free to everyone, this series offers listeners and radio stations the opportunity to experience the conference year-round, and allows access to in-depth interviews with leading social and scientific innovators. It highlights diverse voices of grassroots leaders and voices that are often marginalized or excluded by corporate media. The programs cover a wide range of topics, including intelligence in nature, climate justice, food and farming, gender equity, Indigenous knowledge, reigning in corporate power, and youth activism. Learn more: https://bioneers.org/podcast-mobile-sign-up/

Outside/In from New Hampshire Public Radio is a show about the natural world and how we use it. The show combines solid reporting and long-form narrative storytelling to bring the outdoors to you wherever you are. The program casts a wide net across the environmental spectrum. They do fun explorations of nature, with lots of sound design and immersive scenes; they cover climate change and sustainability, but try to keep solutions to environmental problems in the spotlight; and they do pieces that are more philosophical, reflecting on ways in which society thinks about and depicts nature.

Learn more: http://outsideinradio.org/

Deven Grey, a young, isolated mother in Alabama, reached a point of no return on December 12, 2017. She shot and killed her boyfriend, John Vance. Rather than face a jury, Deven accepted a ?blind plea? deal. This is Deven?s story, reclaimed. From Lemonada Media, this is Blind Plea. 

You can listen to Blind Plea at https://link.chtbl.com/BlindPleaPodcast

Show notes:

This series is created with Evoke Media, a woman-founded company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling to drive social change. This series is presented by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants.

When archaeologists excavate, they have some idea of what they will find in the ground. But in 2016, a team of archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, was genuinely surprised when they uncovered a Victorian-era cache. In the process, they forged an uncommonly deep connection with an individual from the past. 

Narrated by Anya Gruber, this story shows how archaeology can humanize the past and how loss can bring us closer. 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell. 

Anya Gruber is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, specializing in paleoethnobotany. She previously worked in New Mexico and currently works in coastal Massachusetts. Anya writes about a range of topics, including ancient diets, medicinal plants, mourning practices, and infectious diseases. Follow her on Instagram @anyagruber.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out these related resources: 

·   Cole?s Hill Memorial Cache: An Introduction at The Fiske Center Blog

·   From Dustpan to Daguerreotype 

Episode sponsor:

·   This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Aneho is a little historic West African town that is disappearing due to coastal erosion. But locals defy the sea and continue to live on the water?s edge. In this episode, we hear how their decision to stay in the face of an ever-approaching shoreline affects life along the coast and beyond.

As reported by Koffi Nomedji, a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology from Lomé, Togo, we learn how as humans we variously face climate change?induced disaster. 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell. 

Koffi Nomedji is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at Duke University. He is currently working on questions related to climate change, policymaking, and development in Africa. His dissertation explores communities? adaptation to coastal erosion in Togo, which is what he will be podcasting and writing about during his time in the SAPIENS fellowship program. Koffi has a rich professional background in international development. Prior to his doctoral journey, he served for eight years as a community organizer committed to local development and climate response in Togo.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Episode sponsor:

·   This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Julio Tiwiram is a famous shaman in southeast Amazonian Ecuador. He is also a leading political figure among the Shuar people of Bomboiza. Growing up at the crossroads of social change and colonial conflict, his path to shamanism was anything but straightforward. 

As reported by Sebastián Vacas-Oleas, a social anthropologist working with the Shuar people of Bomboiza, we learn how a mysterious shamanic gathering helped Shuar people mobilize their traditional knowledge to fight for their land against settler occupation. 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell. 

Sebastián Vacas-Oleas is a postdoctoral affiliate at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. He is also a lecturer and a visiting researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Ecuador. He is currently working as an editor on a Shuar-authored book of collected life histories, which includes the story of Julio Tiwiram and the events heard in this episode. Sebastián also helps coordinate a project with the Bomboiza Shuar Research Group, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, to study Shuar ancestral locations, migratory movements, women?s gardening practices, and change in Indigenous relations with their land. 

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out this related resource: 

·   You can visit Julio Tiwiram in Kupiamais, his home community, in the Bomboiza land reserve, where he sees patients in his home. You can read more about Bomboiza, its shamans, our forthcoming book, and other shared ongoing projects on www.bomboiza.org.

Episode sponsor:

·   This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The world over people live with plants. Whether it?s in apartment bedrooms or backyards, it?s hard to find a human who doesn?t have some relationship with a plant. Enter paleoethnobotany, a field of archeology that examines plant remains to understand the historic alliance between humans and their vegetation. In this episode, host Eshe Lewis interviews archaeologist Katie Chiou to explore the spiciest human-plant affair: chili peppers.

Katherine L. Chiou is an anthropological archaeologist and paleoethnobotanist whose research interests include foodways in the past and present, Andean archaeology, household archaeology, plant domestication, food sovereignty, agrobiodiversity, sustainability, GIS and data visualization, and responsible conduct of research. Katherine received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently an assistant professor in anthropology?at the?University of Alabama, where she oversees the Ancient People and Plants Laboratory. She is currently working on a project, funded by the National Science Foundation, to study and promote ethical cultures in the field of archaeology. Her writing and podcasting as a SAPIENS fellow will revolve around the subject of food, particularly the enigmatic relationship between people and chiles, past and present.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell. 

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Episode sponsor:

·   This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Anyone who is in prison has been charged for a crime by a prosecutor. The charges are important because they determine someone?s punishment. How do prosecutors make their charging decisions? And what are the long-term impacts of those decisions?  

Reported by Esteban Salmón, an anthropologist born and raised in Mexico City, we learn just how powerful a charging decision can be in the Mexican criminal justice system. 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell. 

Esteban Salmón is an anthropologist who studies the ethics of criminal prosecution in Mexico City. He is currently a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Stanford University. His first book explores how immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border affects the relations between a community of undocumented migrants in New York and their hometown in central Mexico. Before attending graduate school, Esteban worked as a community organizer and policy advocate for access to justice initiatives in Mexico City. His research has been funded by the Fulbright Program, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Follow him on Twitter @EsteSalmon.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Episode sponsor:

·   This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Jeri Hutton Green is a mother, daughter, and advocate for survivors of domestic violence and homicide in Baltimore, Maryland. Her journey as an advocate began when her mother went missing in April 2020. A text message launched a 2-year battle for justice for her mother and other missing Black women. 

Reported by Brendane A. Tynes, a doctoral candidate in anthropology and an interpersonal violence survivor advocate, this episode explores what it means to survive domestic violence and police violence as a Black woman. 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell. 

Brendane A. Tynes is a Black queer feminist scholar and storyteller from Columbia, South Carolina. As a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Columbia University, she studies the affective responses of Black women and girls to multiple forms of violence within grassroots Black political movements. Her scholarship has received generous support from the CAETR, Ford Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Foundation. She works with the Say Her Name Coalition and In Our Names Network to address sexual violence against Black women, femmes, girls, and gender-expansive people. Brendane also co-hosts the Zora?s Daughters Podcast, a Black feminist anthropological intervention on popular culture and issues that concern Black women and queer and trans people. Follow her on Twitter @brendanetynes.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out these related resources: 

·   ?How Do We Listen to the Living?? in Anthropology News

·   ?72-Year-Old Woman?s Ex-Boyfriend Begins Murder Trial for Her 2020 Death?

·   U.S. Department of Justice Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department Report (2016)

·   Black Women and Police Violence: A Primer from the University of Illinois

Episode sponsor:

·   This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

?Prime harvest??that?s how one early 20th-century explorer described his collection of Icelandic human skulls. But why did he ?harvest? those skulls in the first place? And what should happen to them now more than a century after they were collected? This case of the Icelandic skulls reveals an interconnected story of eugenics, international law, and the limits of current repatriation efforts. 

As reported by Adam Netzer Zimmer, an Iceland-based anthropologist, we hear how a community once targeted by anthropologists is now expanding our ideas of how to ethically handle human remains.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell. 

Adam Netzer Zimmer is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst, specializing in biocultural anthropology. His research focuses on the rise of race-based anatomical science in 19th- and early 20th-century Iceland and the U.S. He is also interested in queer and feminist perspectives in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, particularly in the history of science. Adam?s work has been supported by a Fulbright/National Science Foundation Arctic Research Grant, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and a Leifur Eiri?ksson Foundation Fellowship. Previously, he was the laboratory manager for the UMass Taphonomic Research Facility and is currently a co?primary director of the Rivulus Dominarum Transylvanian Bioarchaeology project in Baia Mare, Romania.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out these related resources:

·   ?Harvard?s Eugenics Era? in Harvard Magazine

·   Museums: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO)

·   Discovery: The Autobiography of Vilhjálmur Stefánsson

·   Traveling Passions: The Hidden Life of Vilhjálmur Stefánsson by Gísli Pálsson

Episode sponsor:

·   This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Being human is complicated. We require food and shelter. We have histories to contend with. We create rituals to control fate. We steal. We fight. We kill. We love. We shape the environment to suit our needs?sometimes with terrifying results.

This season of the SAPIENS podcast embraces the diversity of human experience, digging deep into our human past and how we live today. The throughline of this season is the way in which humans use cultural beliefs and practices not only to explain the past but also to imagine the present and future. These stories aspire to understand how cultures can guide knowledge of human truths and help all of us to become seekers of wisdom.

Join season 5?s host, Eshe Lewis, on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human.

Season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast was part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Today, we're sharing a teaser from our friends at Whetstone Magazine. They've started something called the Whetstone Radio Collective (WRC). The WRC is a collection of podcasts telling narrative stories through the lens of food anthropology. 

To learn more, visit: https://www.whetstonemagazine.com/radio

 

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, or NAGPRA, is supposed to curb the illegal possession of ancestral Native American remains and cultural items. But a year after it was passed by the U.S. federal government, a significant African burial ground in New York City was uncovered. And there was zero legislation in place for its protection. Dr. Rachel Watkins shares the story of the New York African Burial Ground?and what repatriation looks like for African American communities.

 

(00:00:44) Enter the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology and its NAGPRA controversy. (00:03:19) A discovery in Manhattan is not covered by NAGPRA. (00:05:19) Intro. (00:05:44) Dr. Rachel Watkins, the New York African Burial Ground Project and Michael Blakey.  (00:11:40) Dr. Rachel Watikins meets the Cobb Collection. (00:23:44) Exploring Repatriation for the New York African Burial Ground Project. (00:28:26) The issue of repatriation for the Cobb Collection. (00:34:02) Revisiting season 4. (00:40:49) Credits.

 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal. For more information and transcriptions, visit sapiens.org.  

 

Thank you this time also to The Harvard Review and their podcast, A Legacy Revealed for permitting us to use a clip from Episode 4 I Could See Family in Their Eyes, hosted by Raquel Coronell Uribe and Sixiao Yu and produced by Lara Dada, Zing Gee, and Thomas Maisonneuve.

 

Additional Sponsors:

This episode, and entire series, was made possible by the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, UC San Diego Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology, the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology at Brown University, UMASS Boston?s Fiske Center for Archaeological Research, UC Berkeley?s Archaeological Research Facility, and the Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas.

 

Additional Resources:

 

From SAPIENS: Why the Whiteness of Archaeology Is a Problem Craft an African American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act  New York African Burial Ground  The Mismeasure of Man

Guest:

Rachel Watkins is a biocultural anthropologist with an emphasis on African American biohistory and social history, bioanthropological research practices, and histories of U.S. biological anthropology.

Archaeology helps reimagine a fuller range of experiences, including how people ate, innovated, and rebelled. In this episode, ?slave cuisine? opens a window to honor the legacy of Black creativity, resistance, and community. 

Dr. Peggy Brunache, a food historian and archaeologist, finds shellfish remains in a village of enslaved people, uncovering an untold story of how people found ways to resist. Dr. Kelley Deetz uses Southern food, which is really African food, to initiate difficult conversations about the history of slavery. 

 

(00:01:44) A history of asking ?why? ? from Caribbean markets to American history classrooms. (00:04:50) Introduction. (00:05:56) Dr. Peggy Brunache?s journey to food archaeology as a Haitian-American. (00:13:57) Uncovering slave cuisine. (00:22:33) Dr. Kelley Deetz describes education through food at Stratford Hall. (00:30:43) Slave cuisine today. (00:34:38) Credits.

 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal. For more information and transcriptions, visit sapiens.org.  

 

Additional Sponsors:

This episode was made possible by the UC Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility and the Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas.

 

Additional Resources:

 

About Whitney Battle-Baptiste About Stratford Hall From SAPIENS: The Resistance and Ingenuity of the Cooks Who Lived in Slavery

 

Guests:

 

Dr. Peggy Brunache is a lecturer in the history of Atlantic slavery at the University of Glasgow and the first director of the newly established Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies. Follow her on Twitter @peggybrunache.

 

Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz is a historian and archaeologist who works as the director of collections and visitor engagement at Stratford Hall, the director of education and historic interpretation at Virginia?s Executive Mansion, and a visiting scholar in the department of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. 

The sky island of Dzil Nchaa Si'an is more than a mountain. It is a significant landmark in Arizona for Apache tribal members to collect medicinal plants, perform ceremonies, and connect with their ancestors. It is also a site of resistance against the development of an observatory informally known as the ?Pope Scope,? for its ties to the Vatican. 

 

(00:01:47) A history of competing interests atop Dzil Nchaa Si'an, or Mt.Graham. (00:04:18) Introduction. (00:05:06) Nick and the ?Pope Scope? conflict. (00:07:04) About Field schools and Apache Trust Lands. (00:08:49) How Nick becomes an archaeologist. (00:11:09) Sacred vs holy on Mt. Graham. (00:14:30) Fire on Mt. Graham illuminates value systems. (00:18:32) Apache lands and the 1872 Mining Act. (00:23:19) Guidelines for archaeology learned from Apache ways of knowing. (00:25:18) The Apache methodology of Ni. (00:31:00) Credits 

 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal. For more information and transcriptions, visit sapiens.org. 

 

Additional Sponsors:

This episode was made possible by the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and the Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas.

 

Additional Resources:

 

The indivisibility of land and mind: Indigenous knowledge and collaborative archaeology within Apache contexts Ndee Hotspots: Ethics, Healing and Management  From Sapiens: Why the Camp Grant Massacre Matters Today

 

Guest:

Dr. Nicholas Laluk is a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in east-central Arizona. He completed his Ph.D. at University of Arizona and is currently an assistant professor in the department of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

In this episode, museum curators challenge the status quo and connect their ancestry to advance how history is told in cultural institutions. Mary Elliot brings listeners behind the scenes into the Slavery and Freedom exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. And Dr. Sven Haakanson helps re-create an angiaaq, which is like a kayak, at the Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington.

 

(00:01:24) Meet Mary Elliott, the curator of American slavery at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture. (00:06:46) Introduction. (00:07:20) How Mary Elliott began tracing her own ancestral roots. (00:11:43) How Dr. Sven Haakanson begins his studies of the Alutiiq people. (00:15:57) A year of ethno-archaeology with the Nenets. (00:20:49) resurrecting the Angyaaq. (00:26:47) Sven and Mary share best practices and protocols for being museum curators. (00:33:13) Credits.

 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal. For more information and transcriptions, visit sapiens.org. 

 

Additional Sponsors:

This episode was made possible by the Brown University?s Joukowsky Institute of Archaeology and Columbia University?s Center for Archaeology and the Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas. 

 

Additional Resources:

 

Slavery and Freedom at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African-American History and Culture Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington  From SAPIENS: How Museums Can Do More Than Just Repatriate Objects

 

Guests:

Dr. Sven Haakanson Jr. is Sugpiaq and was born in Old Harbor on Kodiak Island, Alaska. He is a curator of North American anthropology at the Burke Museum, and an associate professor in anthropology at the University of Washington. 

Mary Elliot is a curator of American Slavery at the Smithsonian?s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Follow her on Twitter @Mne7829.

For its practitioners, archaeology can feel like it is unearthing events deep in the past ? until it doesn?t. What is the experience of researchers who discover their life stories are tied to an archaeological site? Dr. Kisha Supernant and Lenora McQueen share their journeys to the unmarked graves of First Nations and Métis peoples and African American burial grounds, respectively, and how their connections to their ancestors transform their work.

 

(00:00:16) The Truth and Reconciliation Commission seeks to understand what happened at Indian residential schools. (00:01:02) Dr. Kisha Supernat introduces her work as a Méthis archaeologist uncovering unmarked Indigenous graves at residential schools. (00:03:34) Introduction. (00:06:43) How Dr. Kisha locates unmarked graves. (00:10:45) Lenora McQueen shares her search to unmarked African American burial grounds. (00:12:23) The story of the Shockoe Hill African Burial Ground. (00:15:58) Introducing heart-centered archaeology. (00:23:41) Credits.

 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal. For more information and transcriptions, visit sapiens.org. 

 

Additional Sponsors:

This episode was made possible by the University of Michigan?s Museum of Anthropological Archaeology and the Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas.

 

Additional Resources:

 

Shockoe Hill African Burial Ground  From SAPIENS: A Weak Commission Brought Forth Survivors? Truths, but Has It Made Reconciliation Possible? From SAPIENS: Archaeology?s Role in Finding Missing Indigenous Children in Canada

Guests: Dr. Kisha Supernant is Métis/Papaschase/British and the director of the Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology at the University of Alberta. Follow her on Twitter @ArchaeoMapper. 

Lenora McQueen is an educator, researcher, community historian, and advocate for the preservation and interpretation of African American historic sites in Virginia.

For many, archaeology means digging up historical artifacts from beneath the ground. But to some, that framework is also violent and colonial. What would it mean to leave ancestors and belongings where they?re found? In this episode, Gabrielle Miller, a PhD student studying African Diaspora Archaeology at the University of Tulsa shares a story about excavations in St. Croix. And Dr. Ayana Flewellen and Dr. Justin Dunnavant discuss how black archaeologists began uncovering sunken slave ships.

(00:02:26) What parts of Archaeology as we know it should be preserved? And what needs to be destroyed?

(00:02:51) Introduction.

(00:03:24) Gabrielle Miller explains their research on the Free Black Community in St. Croix.

(00:07:07) Meet, a ship called the Guerrero.

(00:08:43) How Diving with a Purpose originated.

(00:09:39) Justin Dunnavant and Ayana Flewellen create The Society of Black Archaeologists.

00:12:25) A guide to underwater, or maritime archaeology.

00:16:09) What Black Feminist archaeology is adding to the field.

(00:21:29) How learning from artists can help stretch the academic container.

(00:25:17) Credits.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal.

This episode was also sponsored by the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology at the University of California, San Diego and The Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas.

For more information and transcripts, visit https://www.sapiens.org/.

Additional Resources:

Diving with a Purpose 

Cornell University's RadioCIAMS 

Gabrielle Civil, an American performance artist

La Vaughn Belle artist statement 

Guests:

Gabrille Miller is a PhD student at the University of Tulsa studying African Diaspora Archaeology. Her current research engages the expressions and legacies of freedom and resistance in an eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century free Black community in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands in collaboration with the heritage practitioners, artisans, historians, and descendants of that community.

Dr. Justin Dunnavant is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA. His current research in the US Virgin Islands investigates the relationship between ecology and enslavement in the former Danish West Indies. In addition to his archaeological research, Justin is co-founder of the Society of Black Archaeologists and an AAUS Scientific SCUBA Diver.

Dr. Ayana Omilade Flewellen (they/she) is a Black Feminist, an archaeologist, a storyteller, and an artist. Flewellen is the co-founder and current President of the Society of Black Archaeologists and sits on the Board of Diving With A Purpose. They are an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. Her research and teaching interests address Black Feminist Theory, historical archaeology, maritime heritage conservation, public and community-engaged archaeology, processes of identity formations, and representations of slavery.

Hosts Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali share how they found their way to archaeology and what it means to be Black and Indigenous archaeologists. From defying the status quo in a classroom to diving through sunken ships, Ora and Yoli bring listeners on a journey of reclaiming stories and reimagining history.

 

(00:00:10) How hosts Dr. Ora Merek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali met. (00:03:27) Why Indigenous archaeology is not the same as non-Indigenous archaeology. (00:09:11) What is Maritime archaeology? (00:12:18) Important vocabulary for Season 4. (00:18:10) What is the future of archaeology? (00:19:38) Credits.

 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal. For more information and transcriptions, visit sapiens.org. 

 

Additional Sponsors:
- The Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies
- The Denver Museum of Nature & Science
- The Imago Mundi Fund at Foundation for the Carolinas

For more information including episode transcripts, visit https://www.sapiens.org and check out the following resources:

 

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Black and Indigenous Futures in Archaeology Land Acknowledgments Are Not Enough

 

About The Hosts:

Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez (she/her/asdzaìaì) is a citizen of the Diné Nation, she's also Nez Perce. A Director at the Native American Cultural Center, her work includes supporting & ensuring the success of Northern Arizona University Native American & Indigenous students through Indigenized programming & services. An Assistant Professor in the Northern Arizona University Anthropology Department, her research interests include Indigenous archaeology & heritage management, research and approaches that utilize ancestral knowledge, decolonizing & Indigenizing methodologies and storytelling in the creation of archaeological knowledge to reaffirm Indigenous connections to land & place. Dr. Marek-Martinez is a founding member of the Indigenous Archaeology Coalition.

Yoli Ngandali (she/he/hers) is a member of the Ngbaka Tribe from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Ronald E. McNair Fellow, and a Ph.D. Candidate in Archaeology at the University of Washington. Her research interests span Archaeologies of colonialism, Indigenous archaeology, Archaeologies of Central Africa, Trans-Indigenous traditions of culture sharing, Black & Indigenous futurity, digital conservation science, remote sensing, and multi-spectral imaging. Her doctoral dissertation develops digital and community-based participatory research approaches to Indigenous art revitalization within museum settings and highlights Indigenous carving traditions in the Pacific Northwest. 

We're launching a new season, asking what makes you ? you? And who tells which stories and why? SAPIENS hosts Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali explore stories of Black and Indigenous scholars as they transform the field of archeology and the stories that make us ? us.

 

(00:00:02) Meet Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez and Yoli Ngandali. (00:00:51) How season four came to be. (00:01:53) Season four previews.

 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human, is produced by House of Pod and supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is also part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This season was created in collaboration with the Indigenous Archaeology Collective and Society of Black Archaeologists, with art by Carla Keaton, and music from Jobii, _91nova, and Justnormal. For more information and transcriptions, visit sapiens.org. 

For more information including episode transcripts, visit https://www.sapiens.org and check out From the Margins to the Mainstream: Black and Indigenous Futures in Archaeology.

 

About The Hosts:

Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez (she/her/asdzaìaì) is a citizen of the Diné Nation, she's also Nez Perce. A Director at the Native American Cultural Center, her work includes supporting & ensuring the success of Northern Arizona University Native American & Indigenous students through Indigenized programming & services. An Assistant Professor in the Northern Arizona University Anthropology Department, her research interests include Indigenous archaeology & heritage management, research and approaches that utilize ancestral knowledge, decolonizing & Indigenizing methodologies and storytelling in the creation of archaeological knowledge to reaffirm Indigenous connections to land & place. Dr. Marek-Martinez is a founding member of the Indigenous Archaeology Coalition.

Yoli Ngandali (she/he/hers) is a member of the Ngbaka Tribe from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a Ronald E. McNair Fellow, and a Ph.D. Candidate in Archaeology at the University of Washington. Her research interests span Archaeologies of colonialism, Indigenous archaeology, Archaeologies of Central Africa, Trans-Indigenous traditions of culture sharing, Black & Indigenous futurity, digital conservation science, remote sensing, and multi-spectral imaging. Her doctoral dissertation develops digital and community-based participatory research approaches to Indigenous art revitalization within museum settings and highlights Indigenous carving traditions in the Pacific Northwest. 

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with evolutionary geneticist Hugo Zeberg about his surprising discovery of a connection between Neanderthal DNA and a greater risk for severe COVID-19. Zeberg is also a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.Read the paper in Nature Zeberg co-authored announcing the discovery: ?The Major Genetic Risk Factor for Severe COVID-19 Is Inherited From Neanderthals.?

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell speaks with Melanie Adams, the director of the Smithsonian?s Anacostia Community Museum (ACM), about #Moments of Resilience, the ACM?s effort to document and eventually tell African Americans? stories about the times we're living through now. They also discuss the unique role of a community museum, the value of oral history, and the communities the ACM serves from its home in Washington, D.C. 

Check out these links to the three stories Melanie reads in this episode:

Spreading Joy; One Rock at a Time More Than a Cup of Coffee The Resurrection of Gloria

The following pieces are sources Chip mentions in his introduction:

?As Pandemic Deaths Add Up, Racial Disparities Persist?and in Some Cases Worsen? by Daniel Wood ?No, ?Racial Genetics? Aren?t Affecting COVID-19 Deaths? by Sonia Zakrzewski

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with biological anthropologist Helen Fisher about her research on love, sex, and everything in between. Fisher is the author of six books, the chief scientific adviser for the online dating site Match.com, and a leading researcher on dating trends in America. In this episode, Fisher shares insights from a recent survey. 

The New York Times piece Fisher references in this episode is available here: ?How Coronavirus Is Changing the Dating Game for the Better.?  

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell talks with experimental archaeologist Farrell Monaco about her work re-creating ancient Roman bread and what it means to reconnect with bakers of the past. Farrell also offers some tips for pandemic-era bakers who want to take their new hobby to the next level. 

For more from Farrell, her award-winning website is Tavola Mediterranea. 

Read more about experimental archaeology, including Farrell and her work, at SAPIENS.org: ?Pandemic Bakers Bring the Past to Life.? And go ahead and try to make the Roman bread recipe described by Cato the Elder. 

 

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon speaks with Agustín Fuentes, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University, to unpack his insight that the COVID-19 pandemic is a biosocial phenomenon. They also discuss his recent suggestion that the virus ?is not the only hazard to human health and well-being? right now.

Recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fuentes is a decorated anthropologist and an author of many books. His latest is Why We Believe: Evolution and the Human Way of Being.

For more from Fuentes, an excerpt of Why We Believe is available at SAPIENS.org: ?How Did Beliefs Evolve?? Also on SAPIENS.org, he hosted the debate, ?Why Are Humans Violent?? 

The SAPIENS podcast will return in several months, and we want you to help us understand what it means to be human amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you have a question, thought, or idea about what it means to be human right now? Tweet at us @SAPIENS_org, message us on Facebook, or leave us a voicemail at 1-970-368-9730.

Everyone seems to have a story about the moment when the novel coronavirus pandemic stopped being an abstract problem ?somewhere out there? and started being a very real and personal threat. In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell interrogate the problem with abstract threats with the help of anthropologists Hugh Gusterson and Kristin Hedges. In closing, Steve Nash returns to discuss a different abstract concept: time.

Hugh Gusterson is a professor of anthropology and international affairs at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @GustersonP and read his recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: ?The Problem of Imagining the Real.? Kristin Hedges is an applied medical anthropologist who studies how understanding cultural constructions of illness is essential for successful health intervention campaigns. She is an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. Follow her on Twitter @kristinhedges6 and read her recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: ?The Symbolic Power of Virus Testing.? Steve Nash is a historian of science, an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a columnist for SAPIENS. Follow him on Twitter @nash_dr, check out his column Curiosities, and read the column post he mentions in this episode: ?The Long Count.?  

At some time in the future, the novel coronavirus pandemic will fade. What will this globally traumatic contagion leave in its wake? In this episode of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell keep an eye on the future while looking to the past for answers: In the 14th century, the Black Death killed as much as one-third of the population of Europe, but it also sparked new ideas that linger to this day, including one of our favorite modern myths. 

In closing, Steve Nash returns to discuss the plague doctors of Venice and the many meanings of masks.

Sara Toth Stub is a journalist based in Jerusalem who writes about religion, business, travel, and archaeology. Follow her on Twitter at @saratothstub and read her recent piece at SAPIENS magazine: ?Venice?s Black Death and the Dawn of Quarantine.? 

Matteo Borrini is a forensic anthropologist in the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University. Check out one of his academic papers for more about ?Carmilla.? 

Jane Stevens Crawshaw is a senior lecturer in early modern European history at Oxford Brookes University and the author of Plague Hospitals: Public Health for the City in Early Modern Venice. 

Steve Nash is a historian of science, an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a columnist for SAPIENS. Check out his column Curiosities and follow him on Twitter @nash_dr. 

SAPIENS host Jen Shannon interviews Laurence Ralph, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. Ralph is also a co-director of Princeton?s Center on Transnational Policing, the editor of Current Anthropology, and the author of the new book The Torture Letters: Reckoning With Police Violence, which exposes the Chicago Police Department?s history of torturing black men and women, and documents the community activism intent on stopping such violence. 

The poll Jen mentions in this episode was conducted by Monmouth and published on June 2, 2020.

SAPIENS host Chip Colwell interviews Elic Weitzel, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Connecticut, about his recent article for SAPIENS that considers how the global pandemic may impact climate change?for better or for worse. Weitzel is currently working on his dissertation on the environmental effects of the Black Death on 14th-century Eurasia and the depopulation of Native Americans in the wake of European colonization. Read his SAPIENS article: ?Are Pandemics Good for the Environment??

With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the SAPIENS podcast is going viral. In this first episode of season 3, SAPIENS hosts Chip Colwell and Jen Shannon revisit a story about preppers from our first season. Jen calls Chad Huddleston, one of the anthropologists featured on that show, to find out how he and the preppers he studies are handling the COVID-19 crisis. In closing, Chip reaches out to SAPIENS columnist and anthropologist Steve Nash to discuss panic buying, toilet paper, and more.

Chad Huddleston is an adjunct assistant professor at St. Louis University and an instructor at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. Read his SAPIENS article: ?For Preppers, the Apocalypse Is Just Another Disaster.? Steve Nash is a historian of science, an archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a columnist for SAPIENS. Check out his column Curiosities and follow him on Twitter @nash_dr.

In this season 2 finale of the SAPIENS podcast, hosts Jen Shannon, Chip Colwell, and Esteban Gómez field questions from listeners on Twitter and at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science about what it means to be human. They address human origins and self-awareness, discrimination, social media, and more!

You can follow all of our expert guests on Twitter: Augustin Fuentes at the University of Notre Dame (@Anthrofuentes); Daniel Miller at the University College London (@DannyAnth); and Barbara King, professor emerita at William and Mary (@bjkingape).

Mark Shriver, professor at Pennsylvania State University, did a study on human nose shape and climate adaptation that also informed our conversation. Finally, here's a link to the nose-picking gorilla photos mentioned in this episode.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is a part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Until very recently, Colin Turnbull was the only anthropologist who had lived and studied with both the Mbuti people of the Congo region and the Ik of Uganda. Because of his writings, one community became known for its egalitarianism and the other for its selfishness. His observations of the Ik in particular, as ?inhuman? and ?inhospitable,? led to them being dubbed as ?the loveless people.? Then in 2009, Cathryn Townsend earned the chance to live with the Ik to study to generosity. In this episode, she shares her insights on what she found, and what Turnbull may have gotten wrong.

To learn more about Cathryn Townsend's work, follow her on Twitter @CathrynTownsend. This episode is inspired by the SAPIENS.org article ?Is a More Generous Society Possible?? Learn more about the Human Generosity Project, of which Cathryn is a part.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is a part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Music for this episode includes:

?Hello World,? ?Who Were These People,? ?Malaria,? ?In Transit? by Matthew Simonson. ?As I Was Saying,? ?Curiosity,? ?Quizitive,? Reflections,? All I have Left Are These Photographs? by Lee Rosevere ?Silver Flame? by Kevin Macleod ?Walking Bells? by Studio D

Anthropologist Elisa Sobo never wanted to study the issue of vaccination. The topic was too fraught, she says, and she didn't want to touch it. But then she initiated a children?s health study at a school in California. Today her work on vaccine hesitancy offers insights into how those on opposing sides might better understand each other and work through this highly controversial issue.

For more, check out Elisa Sobo?s SAPIENS piece about her work on vaccination: ?Beyond the Vaccination Rift.?

For the other vaccination-related SAPIENS article Chip mentions in this episode, see: ?Why Eradicating Polio Is More Complicated Than It Seems.?

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Music for this episode includes:

?Metadata in One Lesson,? ?School Daze,? ?Museum,? ?In Transit? by Matthew Simonson ?Missa Pastoralis Bohemica, Hej, Mistre? by Georg Munzel ?Trusted News V2? by David Fesliyan ?Here?s the Thing,? ?Sad Marimba Planet? by Lee Rosevere ?Come As You Were? by Blue Dot Sessions

What is it about certain musical traditions that cause them to take root in communities far away from where they originated? Anthropologist Kristina Jacobsen leads SAPIENS hosts Jen Shannon and Chip Colwell on a musical journey into the U.S. Southwest to understand the phenomenon that is Navajo country music. In addition to authoring the book The Sound of Navajo Country: Music, Language, and Diné Belonging, Jacobsen is a singer-songwriter. This episode includes one of her songs and a number of others she learned about during her time on the Navajo Nation.

Listen to more music by Dennis Yazzie and the Night Breeze Band here. For more on Navajo country music, read Jacobsen's article at SAPIENS: ?Why Navajos Love Their Country Music.?

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Music for this episode includes:

?Selja Star? by Ken Jacobsen ?El Tajo,? ?Moon Bicycle Theme,? ?FasterFasterBrighter,? ?Villano,? ?Waltz for Zacaria? by Blue Dot Sessions ?In Transit,? ?Chads Story? by Matthew Simonson ?Room at the Top of the Stairs,? ?Wanted Man,? ?Made in Japan? by Dennis Yazzie and the Night Breeze Band ?Inez? by Kristina Jacobsen

How do language, biology, and culture shape an individual?s experience of color? A journalist investigates the anthropological debate about whether color is a human universal. 

Remember the meme #TheDress? Was it white and gold, or blue and black? With the help of Nicola Jones, a freelance science journalist who writes for Nature and SAPIENS, SAPIENS host Jen Shannon explores the question of color perception to find answers. She learns about the book The World Color Survey, an Amazonian tribe in Peru whose language has no color words, the biology of the human eye. 

Nicola Jones is a science reporter and journalist. Follow her on Twitter @nicolakimjones.

Simon Overall is a linguist and guest lecturer at the University of Otago in New Zealand. You can follow him at @ginsengburger.

For more on the debate about color perception, read Jones' article at SAPIENS.org: "Do You See What I See?" 

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Music for this episode includes:

?I?m That Guy,? ?Chads Story,? ?Cerutti,? ?In Transit,? ?Museum,? ?School Daze?  by Matthew Simonson ?Palms Down,? ?Soothe,? ?Bridgewalker? by Blue Dot Sessions ?Marimba Colors? by Jason Paton

Anthropologist Sabine Hyland attempts to uncover the secrets held in twisted and colored Andean cords called khipus. Thanks to the collaborative approach of anthropologist Sabine Hyland and local communities, outsiders are finally coming to understand what these khipus mean?for the people of the Andes and for the rest of us.

Sabine Hyland is a professor of anthropology at the University of St. Andrews. Follow her on Twitter @Coyagirl.

For more on khipus, read Hyland?s article about the Collata khipus at SAPIENS.org: ?Unraveling an Ancient Code Written in Strings.? The book Chip mentions at the end of this episode is called Wisdom Sits in Places by Keith Basso.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Correction: Hyland confirmed for us that the 1783 rebellion was against the Spanish, not the Inca, as she said in one quote in the initial version of this episode. We have since removed the error.

Music for this episode includes:

?Denzel Sprak,? ?Weathervane,? ?Are We Loose Yet,? ?Bidious Transit,? ?Borough,? ?Gullwing Sailor,? ?Cases to Rest? by Blue Dot Sessions ?4,? ?Cerutti,? ?Ballgames,? ?In Transit? by Matthew Simonson ?Hero Down? by Kevin Macleod

Anthropologist Roger Lohmann sees a ghost in a dream while working in Papua New Guinea. Even though he knows it's just a dream, he's scared long after he wakes up. To make sense of his dream, Lohmann explores the role dreams play in our waking life and how different cultures make sense of dream worlds. Do all humans dream the same? Or do the cultures we are immersed in shape our dreams? Lohmann has six cultural dream theories that offer some answers to what dreams are and what they mean.

Roger Lohmann has six cultural dream theories that offer some answers to what dreams are and what they mean. Roger Lohmann is a professor of anthropology at Trent University, where he specializes in religion, cultural change, and cultural dream theory.

Follow him on Twitter @rogerlohmann. Read Lohmann?s article at SAPIENS: ?The Night I Was Attacked by a Ghost.? And for more, check out an essay about Islamic dream culture: ?Do Dreams Give Voice to the Divine??

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Music for this episode includes:

?Thoughtful? by Lee Rosevere ?In Transit,? ?Metadata in One Lesson? by Matthew Simonson ?Balti,? ?The Provisions? by Blue Dot Sessions